This week, I am pleased to present my interview with
Dr. Gary Steiner, professor of philosophy at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. Much of Gary Steiner’s work has focused on the moral status of animals in Western philosophy. He is the author of many academic papers and four published books, including Anthropocentrism and its Discontents, Animals and the Moral Community, and Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism. His fifth book, which will be published later this year, will be titled Felt Kinship: The Historical Pretensions of Reason and the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals.
In this interview, Gary speaks about the history of the moral status of animals in the Western world, and we discuss whether Christianity can lead to animal rights and veganism. After that, Gary tells me about his book Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism, explaining why the philosophy of postmodernism fails to establish the clear moral principles that are necessary in order to achieve justice for nonhuman animals. Then he outlines a philosophy of animal ethics that we could embrace instead. Finally, we discuss whether there is hope that we could achieve a vegan world.